The Hard Way
by RadiantAria
Summary: She didn't want to come back.  Alive was empty and cold and the one she loved was gone forever... dead.  All she wanted to do was join her.  OC Missing/Hanalia from Sisters of Elune server


((I tried to time this as best I could with the actual song, so if you go find it on youtube and listen along it should be fairly in time with the story. Obviously everyone reads differently so it won't be perfect. "The Hard Way" Fort Minor

This is the story of my favorite character's death... But it's still kind of happy in a way. At this point of my rping on WoW she had stopped being fun to play. Most of my save stories from her days in the Cheshire Cats are on my computer back home, but this one was on the SoE rp forum so I could get it here. It's fairly easy to follow even if you don't play World of Warcraft.

Some 'quick' backstory. Missy (and myself by association) was a part of a gang-like guild called the Cheshire Cats on the Sisters of Elune server for two years (a very long time considering most don't last even a year). She fell in love with Jineah, and also Sonechka, but Jineah was the one she fully gave her heart to. When I went to basic I needed a reason for Missy's disappearance, which was a quest to find the original World Tree. During this quest she died but was given a new (and faulty, she couldn't speak) body by the glowing ball thingy in this story. Essentially she shared magic with a Shaman which allowed the spirit to draw on that bond to remake Missy. The pendant she wears in the picture is how she manages to talk in her defective remake body, it was made by Sonechka and must be charged with magic every so often in order to continue working. Her old body was found by the Lich King and she was turned into a Death Knight and, by the time she finally made it home, Jineah had moved on.

Through some ooc events I (and by association Missy) was thrown out of the guild for refusing to change my character to fit the guild leader's view of canon WoW. So Missy, broken, joined Brookwater which was run by another ex-Cat. But she had no more joy in life, so she completely gave up her rogue talents, having no desire to continue them without Jineah or the Cats to push her and became generally not fun to play. The rest is in the story.

Since most people have probably never played with Missy this is what she and Midnae look like:

.com/albums/l125/_Dark_ ))

Words of other characters were not changed at all with exceptions of punctuation adjustments to better fit their context in this story and personal thoughts of other characters removed as Missy would not have known them. Midnae, Missing, and the spirit are my characters. All others are property of their players and World of Warcraft is the property of Blizzard even though they're destroying it's lore bit by bit.))

The Hard Way

The tremors shook the very mountains of Darkshore, causing the wildlife to hunker down in fear. The area had been experiencing such tremors with increasing frequency of late, causing some worry for the inhabitants of Auberdine and travelers of the port alike. Many such travelers were now in the care of the Druids who lived there, who were doing their best to deal with so many patients in an area not used to such taxing numbers.

One such druid was kneeling next to his current charge, a rosy-skinned night elf woman with long flowing purple hair that spilled over the edge of her cot. The strands were caked with dried blood from where she had struck a rock during one of the shakes. The druid was carefully dabbing at her head with a damp, herb-infused cloth.

A priestess came up behind him, "No luck?"

The druid sighed and stood, "I've tried every herb and spell in my arsenal, it's as if the woman refuses to wake up."

The priestess nodded, looking the girl over, she was definitely the one from her dream. Her eyes flicked towards a shaggy white wolf who lay at the head of the patient's cot, "Who is this?"

The druid shrugged, "Who knows, she doesn't seem violent though, except when we try to remove her."

The she-wolf in question had locked eyes with the priestess who sent a probe into the animal's mind only to discover the traces of shamanic magic.

The beast growled, then lay her head next to the patient's head with a tired sigh, Come back Hana-dear…

* * *

Hanalia, once called Missing, looked around her. She knew the forests surrounding the Cat's Hall anywhere. The thick rain soaked her hair down to it's full length, causing it to stick to the small of her back like cloth. She wore only a simple gray woolen robe and her ruby pendant and yet, was not chilled by the rain.

Her bare feet carried her forward towards where she knew the hall to be. Branches cracking underfoot.

"You could have left a note. Something, anything! You didn't magically vanish! You could have taken two minutes to leave me something!"

Missing whirled around at the familiar voice. No… Jineah was dead… She shut her eyes tight, when she opened them again she was in front of the door to the hall. She pushed the door open but only saw darkness.

She shouldn't be here, she knew that. But they had all left her hadn't they? Did it even matter anymore. She took a deep breath, steeled herself, and stepped across the threshold.

_Come with me_

_Let me walk in through the world that I currently stay in_

_You can take a look around and tell me if I'm mistaken_

_You can even talk to everybody that I live with_

_Maybe you could tell me why everybody's so distant_

_Is it me or maybe, when I look around daily_

_I don't even know the people I can put my trust in lately_

_People that I used to hang with now their actin' to different_

_I'm still the same person why doesn't anybody listen_

_Can somebody please just explain to me_

_What happened to the way that we always said we'd be_

_Right now I don't know why I push through the pain that I got through_

_And I'm losin' hope_

The hall was filled with the light of the fireplace, she saw Grimun and some barely familiar faces sitting around the main room, faces of those who had joined in her absence. The kitchen door opened and a furious version of herself, clad in leather, strode across the floor towards the stairs. She turned ice-blue eyes on Grimun, her voice cold as it split into two, "You betrayed me…I trusted you…" Grimun had the decency to look ashamed, but it didn't matter anymore, nothing did.

Hana shook her head, tears stinging her now silver eyes, she shut them against the scene.

She heard herself ask in her old voice, her normal voice, "Why are you crying?"

Jineah's sobs filled the room now, Hanalia found her arms aching to hold her once more, "Because I never thought I'd see you again. Because I never thought I'd be saying these words. Because I never thought… I'd want to scream them."

The elf forced her eyes open, but once more there was no one there. The room was now dark, rain blew in through the still open door behind her, staining the wooden floors dark. She looked up at the tattered bits of fabric hanging from the beams in the ceiling. She thought she saw a green hat peak over one of them, but when she looked again it was gone. She tuned to see an open book on one of the abandoned tables.

_Deafening voices_

_That frequency inside my head that says_

_I'm going at it the hard way I focus_

_Get everything inside out of my brain that claims_

_I'm going at it the hard way_

She ran her fingers along the tattered pages of the familiar book, her journal. She hadn't even bothered to gather it when she had left, what need did the dead have of journals?

"Yer stinkin' up the place! What, do you not get it? Yer brains already turned to mush?"

The devil's cackle filled the empty room as Hana threw the book at the empty place where Kat's desk used to be. She had loved that woman more than her own mother, all of them, they had been her family. They had betrayed her. She had fought her way back to their sides only to be jeered at and told that there was no longer any love for her. There had been no welcome home, only a swift goodbye. And when she had tried to return, she had found her connection to this place severed.

"I would have died for you Kat… had you only but asked…"

But they hadn't even loved her enough for that, so she had been exiled like she was no better than the traitors who had left before.

_Come with me_

_Let me walk in through the world that I currently live in_

_Not a thing is forgotten, not a thing is forgiven_

_Nobody can hold their own underneath the weight but_

_Nobody can take the blame for their own mistakes so_

_What do you do when somebody lets you down_

_And you wanna say something but you can't cause their not around_

_Inside you think they know the extent of the pain_

_But they won't even admit that they were the one to blame_

_Can somebody please just explain to me_

_What happened to the way that we always said we'd be_

_Cause right now I dunno why I push through the pain that I got through_

_And I'm losin' hope_

Hana glared at the book, a collection of memories of better times when her family had loved her, had fought tooth and nail to keep her safe. She glared at the collection of lies until it burst into flame, not even caring when the flames caught a curtain half off it's window. She turned from it as a voice called to her from the direction of the stairs.

"Jineah… I've always come back to the Cats… to you… to Sone… Even though death… What made you think I wouldn't this time..?"

She stepped up onto the first stair, the voice was coming from upstairs…

"I knew you would, but how could I have known it would be in my lifetime? I can't count all the times I've nearly died on all the fingers in Stormwind. And now I'm going to loose my right eye. I'm falling apart Missing. Time is of the essence to me."

She was now fairly convinced that she was dead, was Jineah waiting for her up there? Hana climbed with increasing speed now.

"It took two months to fight the Lich King's will on my soul… two months… in that time… the things I did… I knew something was missing… I was confused by the ring… the pendant… something always tugged at my mind… my soul… Two months… to fight the will of the monster who destroyed our tree, two months working for HIM… two months on the forefront… two months doing his bidding…"

Hanalia reached the top landing, her long ears twitching to try and catch the direction of the sound but it only seemed to bounce off the walls, echoing down the hallway.

_Deafening voices_

_That frequency inside my head that says_

_I'm going at it the hard way I focus_

_Get everything inside out of my brain that claims_

_I'm going at it the hard way_

Her past voice increased in volume, causing Hana to clasp her hands over her ears in pain.

"Missing no longer exists! So you were right… you will NEVER see her again!"

"Stop… please…"

Hana turned towards the open door that had once been the room that she, Jineah, and even Sonechka for a short time, had shared. The voices were coming from there.

"You want to talk about time..? Even if you did still love me I would find no warmth in your touch… There is no more love for me, only strength, I accept that, you should too…'

Hana heard the lies spill from her past's lips and tried in vain to make them stop, to take back what she had said. The things that she had said to keep Jineah from regretting her decision to leave the elf, to make her angry at the rogue.

_Voices in my head_

_Can somebody please just explain to me_

_What happened to the way that we always said we'd be_

_Right now I dunno why I push through the pain that I got through_

_And I'm losin' hope, give me one reason not to_

"So, even if I had waited , if I had that real love that you talked about, it would have been pointless because of what you are now, is that what you're telling me..?"

Hanalia whirled around the corner of the doorframe, seeing herself clad in rogue gear, and Jineah dressed for battle and covered in ethereal blood. Her past self stepped towards the warrior and placed her fingers on the girl's cheek. She couldn't hear what they were saying anymore, her eyes were transfixed on the scarred human that had been her entire world for so long. The only one who she had thought would never betray her.

Jineah batted the had away and yelled at the former Missing, "Why are you doing this?"

"So you will move on…" Hana spoke now as she had then, her past form faded and Jineah's gaze fixed on her instead.

"I have moved on."

And then… she was gone, and Hanalia shut her eyes against the tears.

_Deafening voices_

_That frequency inside my head that says_

_I'm going at it the hard way I focus_

_Get everything inside out of my brain that claims_

_I'm going at it the hard way_

She opened her eyes once more to the golden glowing form that was her guide. The bright ball bobbed up and down over four objects; a pouch, a blood-stained tabard of the Cats, a deep blue tabard of Brookwater, and an opal ring that glowed brightly.

**You must choose**

Why..?

**You cannot be happy serving Elune, the Cats, Brookwater, and your heart all at once… Perhaps not even two at a time. Elune took you from your family and your love once, now you get to choose.**

I can have her back?

**You can be close to where she is once more, happy. What happens beyond that would be up to you. You will probably never have what you once did, but you will get to see her again.**

One more time… she reached for the ring The rest is up to me..?

**I must warn you that it may only be the one time… you will not be as you are now.**

Irrelevant…

Her hand closed on the ring.

In the village of Auberdine, a wolf howled.


End file.
